During pregnancy, I attended routine monthly check-ups. In the hospital: my husband witnessed two childbirths in the delivery room; I received local anesthesia as I delivered 2 healthy bright-eyed babies--5 1/2years apart; we bonded together as a family before we took our babies home and when we arrived home, we were determined to provide our children with love, nurture and as much education as we could possibly afford.

Britain for example, practiced two different types of child rearing methods during the eighteenth century (Smith, 2006):

• Like Americans, Rousseau and the Romantic poets--Blake, Coleridge and Wordsworth urged parents/educators to think of children as being endowed with a naturally goodness and a precious innocence that will eventually be lost after reaching adulthood therefore, children should be reared like many of their country's rich population--with love, nurture and education.   

• John Wesley and Hannah More however, urged parents/teachers to think of children as bringing a corrupt nature and evil disposition to the world which need to have their spirit's broken so that it can eventually become more subject to the will of God. 

I believe life's miracle of birth changes us all for the better because our bodies want to make babies (Web Video). This birthing process also changes the normal mathmatical equation from
1 + 1 = 2 to 1 + 1 = 3+ and with the onset of  Head Start and Early Head Start programs in America, I believe that Rousseau and the Romantics are correct, infants and young children should experience many loving, nurturing relationships for their successful developmental growth.

References

Smidt, S. (2006). The Developing Child in the 21st century: A global perspective on child development. New York, NY: Routledge, Children and Childhoods, pp1-16.

Web Video Above: PBS NOVA: Life's Greatest Miracle
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/life-greatest-miracle.html